If Memory Serves
by Carlier36
Summary: 50 Prompts: Nate and Sophie remember various incidents in their past. *Previously Known As 'In Living Memory'*
1. Tattoo

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.  
A/N: The prompt table I will be using for this 50 prompts fic can be found at the LJ comm '50prompts'.

**Tattoo**

It's small, discreet. He never would have seen it if it hadn't been for the slit on that dress. Sophie had been sitting on the floor in her apartment, pouring over a blueprint before the New Year's Eve party: 2001 was coming up on them fast. Her dress, teal, half-sheer, off-the-shoulder, had a long slit most of the way up her thigh and with the way she was sitting, it fell away to her hip.

He had been leaning against the wall, curiously watching her work. Or, at least, watching _her_. With her hair piled on top of her head, curls trailing down her cheeks, the soft candlelight reflected in large, plate glass windows made her only that much lovelier. His eyes traced the skin exposed by her dress, up a calf, down a thigh and- Nate stopped, squinting at her.

Slowly, he pushed himself off the wall and walked over to her with his hands in his pockets. Pulling them out, he sat next to her on the carpeted floor, moving carefully so she wouldn't. He reached out, gently trailing the backs of his fingers down her thigh, earning himself a small smile. Flattening out his hand, he rubbed a thumb over the mark that had caught his eye. Sophie straightened suddenly, startled, and quickly adjusted her dress so the tattoo was hidden as usual.

"Have a nice spring break, there, Sophie?" Nate asked, eyes twinkling.

She stammered in embarrassment, flushing deeply. "Oh come on. You never did anything stupid in your twenties?"

"I went to seminary. They don't exactly have spring break for priests-in-training," Nate countered, shoulders shaking with laughter. "Just a little peek; I barely got a glimpse."

She never did give him a better look at the small design on her thigh. But every now and then, in a meeting, on a con, out to dinner with the team, he would find himself staring at the spot and he'd brush his fingers across her leg just there so she knew what he was thinking. Sophie would always simply look up and wink.

Because it was their memories, the little things they knew, that kept them together when the odds were Seabiscuit, Mine That Bird-ridiculous. Nate could never forget _those _times; by now they were too far beneath each other's skin, tattooed on each other's hearts.


	2. Silk

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Silk**

The Silk Job. That's what she called it in the notes she "lost", to throw him off. Nate, of course, assumed she was going for a tapestry or something else _made _of silk. He scoured China and Japan, picked up a lead on another mark along the way and then-

An ornamental Damascene sword disappeared from the National Museum in Damascus.

A gold necklace was stolen from the Aleppo Museum.

Two vases vanished from the Adana Archeological Museum in Turkey.

Then in Konya, Antioch and Beypazan. There wasn't any rhyme or reason, no theme aside from the general location. Nothing made sense with the name Sophie had given this season's work.

Until it hit him: it wasn't what was being stolen, it was the cities themselves. They all had one thing in common.

The Silk Road.

Only Sophie would leave him a clue like that.


	3. Cotton

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Cotton**

Nate always liked Egyptian cotton: his sheets were never less than 600 thread count. Sophie knew; when she was lying there waiting for him to come home to whatever hotel he was currently living out of, she always had plenty of time to read tags.

"Get out of my bed." Nate knew when she was there, without even looking.

"But it's so _comfortable_," she would answer, stretching out luxuriously.

Leaning against the doorframe, he stopped to loosen his tie and unbutton his cuffs. "Come ravish me, Nate." She smirked, winked and rolled over onto her side so she could see him better.

"Get out of my be-ed," Nate sing-songed, unphased.

Years later, just after the move to Portland, the team wound up working out of Nate's apartment until they found a new office. Somehow, no one was surprised – or confused – when Sophie flipped over the tag on Nate's sheets and said, "Egyptian cotton, Nate? Some things never change."


	4. Wine

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Wine**

The red stain swelled across her stomach, staining the pristine fabric of her dress. "Nate…" she gasped.

Nate spun around, eyes wide as he realized what he had done. He stammered, holding up his now-empty wine glass. "Um. Why do I get the feeling you won't buy 'it wasn't me'?"

Sophie growled, glaring at him. "You are _so _paying to have this dry-cleaned."

---

They were all seated at dinner, for once enjoying an opportunity to flaunt their wealth in public. The waiter came to take their drink orders and Sophie requested two white wines for her and for Nate. As the waiter disappeared around a corner, he glowered at her.

"What if I had wanted red?"

"It doesn't matter if you wanted red. I'm _wearing _white."


	5. Sense

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton and Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Sense**

Sophie became his sixth sense. He knew when she walked into a room, even if she wasn't supposed to be in that _country_. He knew when a job was her, even if she had been entirely unpredictable. He knew when she had been somewhere because her perfume lingered for hours after.

He sensed her and chased.

She sensed him and ran.

Yet, somehow, they always met in the odd intersection.


	6. Touch

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Touch**

One clear, perfectly clean fingerprint. It was too good to be true. Sophie was never sloppy like that. Nate just about threw a party when they found it. Until they ran it and came up with nothing.

The woman had never been fingerprinted and nobody ever got close enough to her to get a sample. Except Nate. He had a note with her fingerprints all over it in his wallet. But how could a good, upstanding guy like him admit what was in that note? It seemed Sophie would only tear him down brick by brick: first he let her get so close and now, with this, he would have to let her get away.

He confronted her about it, of course. "You knew I couldn't use that note for comparison. You purposely left a perfect fingerprint just to screw with my head?"

"It's a pretty head."


	7. Sight

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Sight**

She's more than just a beautiful woman. She's smart and funny and loves art and dancing. But don't let any man tell you he _first _fell in love with the girl's brain or her personality. The first thing he sees is curves. Shapely legs, a slender waist, the kind of blouse that makes him want to see the curves underneath _it_.

Curled hair, waterfalling over her shoulders. Full lips that beg to be kissed. Soft skin, sparkling eyes and no wedding band.

The sight of her is the first thing every man falls in love with, and Nate is no exception.


	8. Sound

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Sound**

_You wore blue and the Germans wore grey_. It was true in a way, except it was Nate in blue, not her, and they were French police, not German soldiers. But still, the concept was the same. And that song always made her think of Paris, though it had not been a romantic tryst but ended with her locked up for almost a month. Nate had played the piano and she had sung and that song would stick with her forever.

Nate's favorite, romantic that he was. _As Time Goes By._


	9. Taste

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Taste**

Lobster and pasta.

Crepes and jam.

Tiramisu and coffee.

Wontons and chow mein.

They shared many meals together over the years. Sophie would always insist on tasting his wine or his dessert, anything so they had to share a fork, a glass. The first four years he knew her, she never kissed him. And then, one night after dinner, when they were standing in front of her door, or at least the door he dropped her off at, she leaned up unexpectedly and pressed her lips against his. It was brief and sometimes he wondered if it had actually happened at all, because he could swear he already knew that sweet taste.


	10. Scent

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Scent**

They say the strongest memory trigger is scent and Nate can vouch. He had never been able to exactly place Sophie's perfume but whatever it was that clung to her skin took him right back to Damascus, Paris, Tuscany. That spicy, floral scent he could smell whenever she had been in a room, just a few steps ahead of him. That fragrance that filled his thoughts and dreams when he slept next to Maggie and still does now that he sleeps next to an unoccupied pillow.

And then, one night, it isn't unoccupied, and for weeks he can smell her perfume on it.


	11. Blend

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Blend**

Sophie loved flowers. It was one of the very first things he learned about her. Sophie also loved tea, which was _the first _thing he learned about her. So it shouldn't have surprised him she made her own blend from the herbs in her garden but it did. She never seemed like the hands-on type so the pleasure she could get from grinding and chopping and mixing would never cease to amaze him. And the look on her face when she took the first sip of a fresh batch, the pure contentment, the unadulterated happiness, would never cease to make him smile.


	12. Relief

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton, or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Relief**

The look on her face broke his heart: the shocked how-could-you, the disbelieving I-thought-you-loved-me. The split second in which she met his eyes dragged on so he could feel every shard ripping him open. But then "You wanker…" spilled from her lips and something he could only classify as relief flooded through him. She would be okay; she would live to taunt and tease him another day. It was in that moment of relief that he realized he could not and would not live without her, even if she was going to hate him for the moments before for a long time to come.


	13. Become

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Become**

Neither of them meant for it to happen. But one day he showed up on her doorstep, looking incredible in the kind of coat that sent chills down her spine. He held up his left hand to show her the fading white line there and her heart skipped a beat.

"Nate?"

"Come out here and kiss me, Sophie."

She threw her arms around his neck, very happy to oblige. They stumbled through the front door and barely made it to the couch. And, yet, there they were almost two years later, still fighting and hoping and wishing and wanting. It's easy to become lovers; it's difficult to stay that way.


	14. Six Months

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Six Months**

Six months is a very long time to be apart. But it wasn't the first time they had separated with empty promises of when they would meet again. After the Paris incident, they walked away angry with a 'give me a few years and maybe I won't put you in the hospital.' They met up again in Greece five months later. After a mixup in Spain that almost cost him his job, Sophie left him alone for good. He tracked her down three months later.

After the _Sterling _incident, they scattered for six months. He knew she would be there at the museum, even though it was only three months.

They never made it long apart.


	15. Thread

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Thread**

Nate remembers one night in that brief period of time between when he and Maggie separated and Sam got sick, when Sophie made him really, truly happy. They stumbled through the door, both already half-undressed, his hand on her thigh beneath her skirt. She was always more impatient than he was and so instead of struggling with the buttons on his shirt, she simply tore them off. It didn't phase him at the time but the next morning when he found a button in the fish tank, he whined about her ruining all his shirts.

A week later every shirt was laid out in a neat stack on his bed, all the missing buttons sewn back on with obnoxious red thread so every time he slipped into one of those shirts in the morning, before his coffee, (spiked after Sam was diagnosed), before his paper, before anything else, and caught sight of red thread tied off in even little knots behind each button, he thought of her.


	16. Apple

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Apple**

It sounds b-rated romance novel but to watch her eat an apple is the most mesmerizing thing he's ever seen in his life. She sits in the office, her feet up on a chair as she reads the newspaper, a green apple rolling beneath her fingers on the table. Finally, she picks it up, biting into it absent-mindedly. He watches her swipe at the juice on her lip and realizes he's jealous of an apple. Growling his irritation, he storms back to his office, only to find he can still see her reflected in the mirror on the wall.

Nate remembers watching her another time, years ago, one of those rare times when _he _broke into _her _suite. Of course, hers was always more spacious and expensive than his and when he slipped through the door, he hid in the hallway for a long moment, just watching. She had been lying on the bed, still wrapped in pristine sheets though it was almost noon. He couldn't tell if she was actually _wearing _anything, but her jewelry sparkled in the midday sun streaming in through a big picture window. A book was laid open on her pillow and a crisp, green apple dangled from one hand. She bit into it, and he slunk out before he did anything rash.

Nate closes the door before he does anything rash.


	17. Eve

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Eve**

Sophie has always liked to push the envelope. She likes walking the thin line, rebelling without showing it. Outwardly, she has it all and more. In her not-quite-black heart, however, she is the quintessential woman: always wanting just what is out of reach.

Priceless artwork.

Social title.

Success.

There is one thing she wants more than anything, though, and it is the one thing that has been unreachable, unattainable and was unwanted until she met him: love. She wants Nate and she wants him to love her.

She is Eve, taking the forbidden fruit, but the difference is, there was no snake to talk her into it. She did that herself.

And maybe, just maybe, there is one more vital difference: maybe he isn't forbidden any longer.


	18. Heartbreak

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Heartbreak**

Sometimes, after Sam died and Maggie left him, the two of them would turn up in the same city at the same time. Sometimes he would look her up, sneak into her apartment, her hotel room, late at night after she was curled up, fast asleep in bed. Sometimes he would sit next to her bed, just watching. Sometimes he touched her, his fingers ghosting over her skin.

One night in Paris she never came home. The next night she came home with someone else.

He drove away, heart breaking.

He didn't see her again until Chicago. Like always, he sought her out, a dark corner of the world, only this time there were witnesses and she was smiling not sleeping and maybe he wouldn't be heartbroken forever.


	19. Reason

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Reason**

She really shouldn't have found the words, "I'm _married_," so incredibly sexy, but she did. That was always his reason. His go-to excuse. It killed her, the cold touch of smooth metal on her skin when he took her hand, caught her by the arm. She loved it, the danger, the challenge, the excitement.

Marriage had never suited her. Even if she found the perfect guy, which she thought maybe she had, she wouldn't want to settle down, exactly. Diamonds just didn't look good on her left hand. So his reason, "I'm _married_," for not being with her became a game. A new con to run: an obstacle, a temporary roadblock.


	20. Question

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman or Kari Matchett.

**Question**

Sophie had asked him once about Maggie but he never liked to talk about his wife. She always assumed he didn't want to mix his two worlds and keeping her in the dark would help accomplish that, so she let him have his privacy and never poked around there.

Maggie asked him once about her but he never liked to talk about his marks. She always assumed he wanted to protect her and having her know as little as possible would help accomplish that. At the time, she thought it was sweet.


	21. Spell

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman.

**Spell**

They say Prague is magical, that the crooked streets play tricks on your mind, and Nate is apt to believe it. He must have lost her a dozen times that first night he chased her, but she would appear in the corner of his eye suddenly and he would be off again after the ghost of a red dress.

The whole city seemed to be asleep it was so quiet, snow falling like stars in the crisp November sky. He caught up to her once, his hand on her arm and her back against the old, stone wall of a cathedral. But she stared up at him with liquid brown eyes and kissed him with lips painted red to match that dress and before he knew what was happening, her spell had worked its own magic. She disappeared into thin air, or so it felt, the nameless witch in red.


	22. Swallow

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman

**Swallow**

If either of them hadn't had so much pride, they could have been together years ago. If he had gone to her when his marriage fell apart or if she had let him know sooner how she really felt about him. If they had owned up to having fallen in love.

And then one day he was sober and she was there, smiling at him, and he did it. He swallowed his pride, took a leap of faith, asked her to dinner with him. She said no.

Sophie was wrong. _Pride _was his fatal flaw. But how could she know that, when it was hers too?


	23. Reluctant

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Reluctant**

Candles lit the small corner table, curtained in sheer and draped in linen. Wine and conversation flowed and Nate toasted himself every time she laughed, clear and honest. He held her hand over the table, his thumb softly stroking her palm. She had pulled the curtains shut, much to his chagrin, but with two glasses of wine in him, he realized he liked the privacy.

He walked her back to her hotel that night, her fingers still threaded through his. She kissed him goodnight at the door, both of them intoxicated enough to not stop it. He stayed there in the doorway long after she had gone inside, reluctant to leave and in love enough to not fight it.


	24. Double

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Double**

To see her with him, it was double the pain of not having her to begin with. To see her smiling and laughing, it was double the pain of knowing that he only made her cry. To see her with that wicked little grin, it was double the pain of knowing he couldn't touch her, couldn't satisfy her the way he wanted to. To see her happy, it would have killed him.

But she wasn't happy. She was torn apart on the inside and he beat himself up for not seeing it until she practically laid it in front of him with her insecurities as garnish.

He could have been ecstatic; if she wasn't happy with the mysterious other man, maybe she could be happy with _him_.

But he wasn't. Rather, it was double the pain, just knowing she cried.


	25. Perception

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Perception**

Way back then, Nate saw her as a pretty, lustful thief with no sense of morality and no sense of pride.

Time passed and he came to see her as a dignified woman who, though still lustful, was far more _beautiful_ than pretty.

More time passed and she had plenty of pride and plenty of morality, she just liked being able to pick and choose when it was convenient to use them.

Tick tock and she was the love of his life, just out of reach, torturing him that he couldn't have her, due to his own damn sense of morality.


	26. Read

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement intended.

**Read**

Nate could speak Romanian almost like a native; when he was in seminary, he was always interested in the Eastern European histories. It rolled off his tongue, crisp and clear, and yet he couldn't read a damn word of it.

"Pod Stradă… Arbore Şofer…" Nate sighed, turning slowly on his heel as he looked around the streets, utterly lost. Glancing at the map in his hand, he squinted at the English names on it and the Romanian names on the signs.

"Lost, Nate?" Sophie called from across the road, hands in her pockets.

"I can't read Romanian!" Nate called back, crumpling the map up and chucking it at her.

She laughed, disappearing around a corner into the dark. The next morning there was an English-to-Romanian dictionary on his pillow.


	27. Write

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Write**

Very few people have beautiful handwriting anymore. Penmanship isn't a skill that's taken seriously.

But Sophie has always been among the very few of every bunch and she was raised to be a proper Englishwoman so her writing is exquisite. Swirling and delicately spinning across the page, her pen always seems more like an instrument, a wand, than anything else.

She has left him few notes over the years. But the handful of times he has found a taunting clue under his pillow or a teasing love letter in his suitcase, he has been struck by the beauty she pours into a few scrawled words.

One time in particular, he stopped to notice how incredible her letters were in their imperfect uniformity, their gentle, if ostentatious curves: _I love you_.


	28. Nimble

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Nimble**

She's no Parker but she's certainly more nimble than she looks. Just because she doesn't fall into the category of _cat burglar_, doesn't mean she isn't perfectly capable. In fact, Nate knows first hand how nimble she is. He's seen her on the kitchen counter with her legs wrapped around his waist. He's seen her on her stomach, twisting around to see _him_. He's seen her pressed against a window, stretched up onto her toes to kiss him because she can't quite reach without heels.

No, she's no Parker, but she's certainly more nimble than he ever gave her credit for.


	29. Raven

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Raven**

Her eyes are brown. Her hair is brown. Rich chocolate brown. But in certain lights, in certain places, she turns from warm chocolate to untouchable raven. Her eyes grow dark with something he always assumed was lust but could easily be something more intoxicating. Her hair shimmers as the light catches it, jet black and silky under his fingers, or at least he likes to imagine it would be. He likes her that way. It makes it easier to refuse her, when she's this goddess he doesn't dare look at, much less touch.


	30. Dress

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton or Gina Bellman. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Dress**

Sophie always wore dresses in Europe. She said she liked the elegance of an evening gown or even the simple freedom of a sundress. Nate got used to seeing her in flowing silks and to admiring short hemlines. So the first time he saw her _without _a dress was something of an eyeopener. She was lying on a beach towel in the French Riviera and, like everyone else on the warm sand, she wasn't wearing a stitch of anything. Large, dark sunglasses hid her eyes and she lay there reading a book, seemingly distracted from the whole world around her.

"See anything you like, Nate?" she asked, however, when she saw the black Oxfords trip into her line of vision over the edge of her book.

He stumbled around for something to say as she smirked, happy to awkwardly make his day. Nate swore to himself he wouldn't think about her like that, warm and golden in the sun, but he made a silent promise it would not be the last time he _saw _her like that.


	31. Trick

**Trick**

Tricks and illusions. Sometimes she wondered if that's all they ever were, their relationship, even them as individuals, as people. Were they even real? He could be a magician one day and a salesman the next and then a lawyer, a priest, a teacher. She wasn't any better. He didn't even know her name. Sophie groaned, dropping her head onto the bar. She always seemed to come back to the same routines, night after night. Maybe that was a trick, in and of itself. A trick to keep them apart, to keep her lonely and alone forever because she just wouldn't be happy with anyone else.

Sophie bit her lip, grabbing her phone and flicking through the numbers. He had flown all the way to London to see her, to beg her to come home. Stopping, she chucked her phone over the side of the bridge. No. He was a trick. He was always a trick. Nate couldn't do right by her, he never could and he never would. He was there to catch her when she tripped but his own footing was so unsure, she just couldn't trust him. His sobriety, his sanity, it was all a trick of her heart.


	32. Eternity

**Eternity**

Nate liked to lose himself in bottomless glasses of scotch. He could spend hours studying the way the light from his too-expensive desk lamp reflected through amber liquid to glint off crystal. He never tired of watching the splash of alcohol on the sides as it poured strong and clear from a bottle.

Deep and rich and intoxicating.

They were like dark pools of chocolate or water so murky you couldn't tell what lay beneath its surface. She could make any man do exactly what she wanted with just a good, long stare. Sophie held his gaze and he was drunk on power, completely helpless against her. He never grew bored with the way she looked at him, with the way she expressed only the deepest, the truest of her emotions to him through a simple look, enhanced by the soft curve of her parted lips and the curl that fell across her cheek when she turned towards him.

Nate might be able to lose himself for a few hours in a glass of scotch but he could lose himself for eternity in her eyes.


	33. Childhood

**Childhood**

He was just a little thing, slight, but tall, sandy-brown hair flopping to one side, just like his father's. Blue eyes. Smirking lips. The playful gait of a six-year-old boy as he ran smack into her. Sophie looked up from the book she held in front of her as she walked, startled.

"Daddy, I found her!" he called loudly and her brow furrowed in suspicious confusion.

"Samuel Matthew Ford, get back here!" Nate growled, rounding a corner and pulling his son away from her.

Sophie raised her eyes to his and arched an eyebrow. "Using your son as means of attracting pretty women, Nate? How roguish."

Nate rolled his eyes, holding Sam closer at his side. "Why are you in LA? And for heaven's sake, why did you steal that god-awful vase?"

"It's Ming. I like Ming." Sophie started to dig through her purse for a cigarette but thought better of it in front of Sam.

"No, you don't. The last time you stole anything Asian, it had a lost Russian microchip in the bottom. Not worth anything to any governments anymore but worth a good bit of cash to some James Bond fanatics. What's in the vase?" Nate demanded.

"Nothing. It's just a vase. Stop being so paranoid."

"Flowers." They both turned to look down at the small boy Nate held at his side.

"What?"

"Flowers. Isn't that what goes in vases? If she doesn't have anything to put in her vase, Daddy, you should buy her some flowers," Sam explained innocently, his eyes wide as he craned his neck to look up at his father.

Nate blushed. "Ah… Why don't we buy your mother some flowers instead, hmm? Would you like that?"

"But Mommy _has_ flowers for her vases. _Sheee_ doesn't," Sam replied, nodding conspiratorially in Sophie's direction, his voice hushed.

"Yeah, Nate, why don't you buy me some flowers?" Sophie smirked, crossing her arms.

From then on, every time she stole a vase, flowers were promptly – and anonymously – delivered.


	34. Concrete

**Concrete**

Her sentence was concrete this time. Nothing would get her out of the mess he had set up. Gloom settled over her and Sophie sighed heavily as she was led from the courtroom. Nate was nowhere to be found, probably rejoicing with his _insurance buddies_ that he had finally caught her, bound her up tight. No way even a silver tongue like her own could untie the red tape he had wrapped her up in. (Now, of course, if Nate had offered to tie her up in just about anything else, she would have quickly and willingly obliged.)

But the next morning when they unexpectedly let her out of her cell with profuse apologies for the mistake and 'please don't bother the Minister with this', (though the Tchaikovsky sheets were gone from her safehouse), she decided maybe Nate's disdain for her wasn't so solid after all.


	35. Wild

**Wild**

She's a wild child. Or, at least, she was. She ran free and easy, going where she pleased, doing what she pleased and with _who_ she pleased.

And then she met him.

The stoic, Catholic, insurance investigator with the smart suits, the stylish hats and the rather no-nonsense gun.

It turns out he's a bit wild too, though. He chased her across Europe, handcuffed her to chairs, beds and other available surfaces more than once and not always because it was necessary, and had a grand time the whole of five, six years.

Maybe someday they'll get a taste of that wild back.


End file.
